Four Days of Dirty Tricks & Dirty Secrets

Become the smartest person you know when it comes to soil, compost & compost tea.

DATES: Monday, May 28th - Thursday, May 31st, 2012

WHERE: An acreage 10 minutes south of Calgary, Alberta (scroll down or click here to jump to the bottom of the page and view a map).

After receiving rave reviews from students we are bringing Doug Weatherbee, The Soil Doctor, back to Canada in 2012. 

Why spend four days learning about soil?

Obviously, there are ‘big picture’ societal and ecological reasons to care about the quality of our soil (we’ll share some more of those below) - but what’s in it for you?

Well, this course isn’t for everyone, but it might be for you if:

• you are a farmer (small or large), rancher, or own a vineyard or orchard and want to minimize or eliminate synthetic fertilizer or biocides inputs, reduce irrigation needs and improve soil fertility.

• you are an organic farmer, SPIN farmer or CSA operator and you want to improve your organic growing and land management techniques, reduce the requirement for weeding and ecologically favor the plants that you want to grow.

• 

  you are a gardener or horticulturalist and want healthier, more nutrient-dense  plants, higher germination rates, less watering, less weeding and overall less work!

• you are a landscape architect or soil restorationist and want to speed up plant establishment and rebuild topsoil (say after construction work), suppress plant diseases, have higher survival rates for plantings all the while using non-toxic inputs.

• you are a permaculture designer wanting to learn more about guilds, plant combining, how to support the soil  and establish your food forests faster - starting with the foundation.

• you are an entrepreneur and looking for a new venture to make money and do good things for the planet at the same time - a job you can feel good about (i.e. creating custom composts and compost teas for your clients).

A unique opportunity to learn from an international expert...

After teaching a sold-out course in Calgary in 2011 which received absolutely phenomenal feedback, Soil Foodweb Advisor and soil expert, Doug Weatherbee (a.k.a “The Soil Doctor”) is coming back to teach in 2012! Yipee!! Doug Weatherbee lives in Mexico and although he travels extensively to teach across North America, this the only course he will offer in Canada this year.

Doug has trained extensively with the renown Dr. Elaine Ingham, founder of the Soil Foodweb association. He has studied watershed restoration (you may have heard of Bill Zeedyck’s Induced Meandering river restoration techniques - especially if you’ve taken our PDC). And just like us, he is a Certified Permaculture Designer and Teacher, having studied with one of the world’s leading Permaculturalists, Geoff Lawton.

“The future of our climate and civilization depends up restoring the planet’s 12 billions acres of farmland and pasture land to full vitality, so as to sequester billions of tons of excess greenhouse gases and to produce healthy organic food for the growing global human family. To carry out this Great Transition, we need a corps of Soil Doctors and an army of organic farmers, ranchers, and foresters. Doug Weatherbee is the top Soil Doctor in Mexico and one of the best in the world. His inspiring talk at the 2010 Quivira Carbon Ranch conference was one of the best I’ve ever seen.”
--Ronnie Cummins, International Director
US Organic Consumers Association

Read more reviews from past students here

A little more about soil...

A single teaspoon of soil contains billions of living organisms that are continuously at work, creating soil structure, storing carbon, producing nutrients and building defence systems against disease. In fact, the health of the soil community is key to having healthy plants (and healthy food).

Soil is a complex community of life and actually supports the most biodiverse ecosystem on the planet. Healthy soil cleans water, stores carbon and purifies and heals the very systems that sustain us.

Researchers and authors like Jared Diamond and David Montgomery have shown that the most meaningful indicator for the health of the land (and the long-term health & wealth of a nation), is whether soil is being created & built or destroyed & lost.

And very simply - without soil, food won’t grow.

Why is it then, that much of the food from the conventional agricultural system is grown in dirt? The plants grown in lifeless soil are dependent on fertilizer and biocide inputs, chemicals which further destroy water quality, soil health and nutritional content.

Alright - what can you do about it?

Learn the “dirty” tricks and “dirty” secrets of the Soil Foodweb Approach!

Making More With Microbes

taught by Doug Weatherbee, The Soil Doctor 

WHERE: Ten minutes south of Calgary, Alberta (see map at the bottom of this page)

WHEN: May  28th - May 31st, 2012 (four full days)

COST: $499 + gst

"This course was so valuable for igniting my passion and turning me in a great direction for pasture management, feed production, and food growing. I look forward to using this knowledge to help animal owners in my practice create healthy, microbial rich pastures and crops to care for their animals holistically. What a valuable course! What a passionate instructor! What great "dirty" jokes!"

Holly Franklin, Saskatoon, Sk
River Ridge Equine Therapy

In four action packed days, the Soil Doctor will take you through:

• the basics of microbiology - the “tiny” biology that is so important to bringing life and health to the soil.
• the secrets of making best-quality compost customized for its end use (i..e compost for gardens, compost for grasslands and compost for food forests and orchards).
• all about vermicomposting - composting with worms, that is!
• how to combat soil disturbances, soil compaction, plant diseases and pathogens.
• how to turn a small quantity of compost into a large quantity of quality compost tea & compost extracts, and designs and recipes for your very own compost tea brewer.

Best yet - this workshop is hands-on! Not only will you learn valuable tools and techniques to turn your soil into rich and fertile ground, but you will get your hands dirty too!

Fun hands-on exercises include building and monitoring a compost pile, assembling a compost tea brewer and brewing it up - although we won’t be siting back and enjoying a pint of this brew :)

For a complete course schedule - scroll to the bottom of this page (or click here).

“I’ve heard international speakers talk about the Soil Foodweb approach on three occasions. I never really clearly understood it until I heard Doug.”
---Gerry Shudde, Holistic Management
Cattle Rancher, Texas
www.shudderanch.homestead.com

Read more reviews from past students here

A few last thoughts...

By bringing back organic agricultural methods (like composting), by relying on biology and ecology instead of chemicals and by utilizing naturals systems of soil regeneration, dirt can be raised from the dead and become healthy and alive topsoil.

Your farm, garden or ranch can become a net sequester of C02, eliminate erosion, and significantly reduce its irrigation requirements.

By learning about and understanding soil and soil life, and working with biology your land will have less weeds and more productivity, all the while increasing soil fertility.

We are thrilled to be hosting Doug and offering this course to our community here in Calgary - also can’t hardly wait to re-take it ourselves.

It is past time that we all reconnect with the soil and treat it with the respect and admiration it deserves.

Yeah for compost & compost tea!

Sincerely,

Rob &  Michelle

p.s. Remember this is the only course Doug is teaching this year in Western Canada.

p.p.s. this course is “dirt cheap” when compared to what Doug would otherwise charge for the equivalent time in private consulting- four days would cost you $4000. 

p.p.p.s. guaranteed to include tons of “dirty” jokes and silly puns!

p.p.p.p.s. Be sure to book your spot early - last years course sold out and had a loooong waitlist! 

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Detailed Course Outline

Day 1

• Introductions and Agenda
• Soil Microbiological case studies
• Soil: Sand, silt, clay and humus
• Soil: Microbiological soil food web
• Plant Diseases and Pathogens: It’s a numbers game
• Ecosystem Succession: Why does soil microbiology matter to our plants?
• Review So Far: SoilDoctor soil care take-home principles
• Compost Type Introduction: thermophilic, static and vermicomposting
• Carbon: Nitrogen ratio of compost inputs; bacterial  or fungal dominated compost

Day 2

• How to Make Thermophilic Compost
• How to make Static Compost
• Worm Power: Vermicomposting
• Review So Far: SoilDoctor soil care take-home  
• principles
• Practical “Get Your Hands Dirty” Stuff:

Day 3

• Reversing Ecosystem Succession: Disturbances to the soil and its consequences
• Soil Compaction: The problem of no oxygen
• Microbiological Driven Nutrient Retention in the Soil
• The Carbon Cycle and Soil: Green house gas emission, mitigation and sequestering
• Biogeochemical Nutrient Cycling
• Microbiological Driven Nutrient Availability for Our Plants
• Review So Far: SoilDoctor soil care take-home principles
• Actively Aerated Compost Teas and Extracts
• Tea Brewer Design Examples

Day 4

• Practical “Get Your Hands Dirty” Stuff:

• Review So Far: SoilDoctor soil care take-home principles
• Soil Microbiology Lab Test: What it tells us
• Soil Chemical Test: What it doesn’t tell us
• What’s a Typical Microbiological Growing Season  Look Like?: Some project planning
• So how would this work in my garden, ranch or farm?
• Qualitative Microscope Set-up, Usage, Sampling
• Microscope Identification of Soil Food Web Microbes
• Wrap-up

The course will be held on an acreage located between Calgary and Okotoks, located just off the Queen Elizabeth Highway. The acreage is a 10 minute drive from both Calgary and Okotoks, the nearest community being DeWinton.

	Course Location
	Nearby Hotels in Okotoks
	Nearby Hotels in Calgary
	Nearby Campgrounds

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